Bad Air
by TeaC0sy
Summary: He grimaces at the irony. High on pain. But then who's laughing? And who is he kidding? - Oneshot, Hwoarang x Zafina


Bad Air

He was a breath never breathed before he knew her. _Really _knew her, at first she was just another pretty face. Just another existence. And without warning he found her gradually fleshing out, becoming real, human; growing arms, legs, character. Becoming more than a common blur in the way of chemically-induced victories and hazy training sessions. And he in turn grew feeling. Grew euphoric.

And because he had been breathed, expelled, and she had dissipated before his very eyes, the air is now stale and dank, thick with wavering memories of the past and feeble hopes of the future. The air is heavy in the room, enough to get stuck inside his hair and under his skin, engulfing him inside out. His thoughts return to her. Every bit of her. Even her name manages to entrance him for a time. _Za-fi-na._ He marvels at the ease it rolls off his tongue with. It sounds so right. Too right. The bad air gets inside him, contaminating. The polluter gets polluted.

He hasn't a clue of his location. He just feels foggy; slow movements and a foggy brain, not allowing him to register what was or wasn't in the surroundings and could hardly think straight.

But he _thinks_ of _her_, and the thought of her grabs at him, smothering. And his breathing gets halted, wavering. And the breath becomes breath_less_.

_The first accidental glimpse. The casual return glance. _Lather, rinse, repeat. _Eventually two pairs of eyes daring not to look away, not to blink, to stare brazenly, hungrily. One set lined with thick, charcoal coloured circles and the other with coffee-induced rings. Without a word being issued from either of their mouths or letting the friendly chaos of eager competitors serve as a distraction, neither of them declined the unspoken invitation to the unphysical battle, each struggling to dominate. Zafina finally broke the focus; blinking twice, bringing her head down, then elsewhere. He still didn't look away, despite having won the silent staring contest. He didn't want to look away. It had been a while since anything caught his eye like this, and Hwoarang allowed his eyes to drink in this stranger's face, action justified. She busied herself with attempts to assess the fighters around her and curt responses to their pointless small talk. She didn't turn back to him.  
_

Head rush. A tongue runs along his teeth, and he closes his eyes. Something courses through his veins along with blood, hot, cold, compulsive. Was he standing? Sitting? Floating above ground? Surroundings slipping in and out of focus, everything so close, close enough to touch, hold, _taste_, yet so distant. She's not here. It hurts.

Another gulp. Sweet taste, bad air. And he feels it catching in his throat, he's about to choke; _the air rejects him_ and yet he continues in the room-or-something he found himself in. The window is wide open and the air rushes, rushes through it and he feels superhuman enough to fly, _fly_ after it. And he's so close to reaching it, to catching his prize, to able to gaze at it without interruption and without shame.

But he isn't flying. _It hurts._

A further drag. The cold of his fingers almost sting his lips upon contact but a moment later and they are gone, leaving behind a soothing warmth on his lips accompanied by a blazing, indescribable _ache_. He grimaces at the irony. _High on pain. _

But then who's laughing?

And who is he kidding?

As if on cue a laugh echoes through his mind. Deafening. Light. Sticky. Sweet. And in his intoxicated state he is unsure if what he hears is really sounding.

But she _is_ here, he feels her presence even though he cannot see. For he _inhales_, he _tastes_. Senses bright, he feels the room, here, there, _is it her, it isn't her, is it her, is it._ He stands up, despite not remembering having sat down; tries to walk forward to find her, bring her out from her hiding place once and for all but his legs are too heavy, or the air is too heavy, or he's actually lying down but he cannot move regardless.

But he can raise his fingers to his lips for the second or umpteenth time, and takes another long, drawn out pull, allowing what was released to further contaminate the air and letting still images of her further taint his thoughts. They start to move, fast, blending into one another like a picture book and by coming together it becomes too nonsensical for him. _You're getting addicted to that shit, man,_ comes a somewhat-friend's voice from somewhere in the faint past. _Ain't doin' no good,_ laughs the voice again. _You're getting cheated of the money you scrape together. _

Those images or sounds or memories or subconscious _feelings_, the ones he doesn't care for anymore, they thicken and darken his closed-eye vision, so he can no longer accept her staring challenge. He cannot see her face as clearly. _It's fading._ He reaches out and grabs fruitlessly at the air before him, trying to capture her, her hair, her eyes, but the image diffuses. Gone. His fingers close around nothing. The breath hitches in his throat, catches itself, turns over; passageway shut tight, he's almost retching, nearly choking, eyes beginning to stream --

He opens them. A photographic imprint is all that remains in his sight. Her face, light smirk, soft hair, soft lips... But then it _doesn't_ remain. It _fades_. It diffuses to dust.

A haze.

_Za-fi-na. _

And it _hurts_. He lets his arm drop. He could have laughed, crazed, if he had the breath.

An addiction, is what she was, and everyone told him she's no better than anything from the past but he's past caring. He marvels at how easily the image of her came and went. He marvels at how dependent on her he has become, and all from that _fix_, on that one, lazy day.

And he does indeed feel cheated, as he inhales once more, becoming euphoric, ecstatic, breathless.

But he finds he doesn't mind. His thoughts return to her, and the memory remains. The hurt retains.

* * *

**Because Hwoarang _is _a bad boy. **


End file.
